Researchers re-create Washington's face

PHOENIX -- Researchers at Arizona State University and the University of Pittsburgh have mixed technology, art and science to re-create the real face of George Washington. Using anthropology, 3-D scanning and digital reconstruction, the 2-1/2-year project has culminated in new life-size figures of the nation's first president and some say the images are the most accurate yet of Washington at a younger age.

There is Washington at age 19 as a land surveyor, Washington at 45 during the Revolutionary War, and Washington at 57 when he took the presidential oath.

"The whole idea is to put science, history and art together and come up with the absolute best guess of what he looked like," said James Rees, executive director of George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate, which funded the project. [See picture at http://www.mountvernon.org/visit/plan/index.cfm/pid/829/]